Adjusting to Life on the Summit By Charlie Peachey Working on the summit of Mount Washington is not your average job. There aren't too many other places where the employees work and live together for eight days in a row and then get six days to rest. So, as you might imagine, it takes a little while to adjust to life on the summit, and I have experienced that through my first three months working at the Observatory. I went from finishing research for my master's degree in early August this past summer to working my first shift at the

A Surprise Aurora By Francis Tarasiewicz After 17 months of working at New England’s highest peak, it finally happened. On the night of November 12th, 2023, I was lucky enough to view the famous and ever-elusive Aurora Borealis, or northern lights. This blog will chronicle my experience of the night, including the dazzling details of pillars, excited oxygen molecules, and curtains of plasma. Before I can share the exciting details of the night, I feel it necessary to talk a bit about the science behind this awe-inspiring phenomenon, starting from the sun and ending around 60 miles above our heads

A Glimpse at METAR Reports By Alexis George, Weather Observer & Meteorologist METAR observations are submitted every hour of every day at Mount Washington Observatory. METAR is a format for reporting weather information that gets disseminated through the Aviation Weather Center. While METARs are primarily used by aircraft pilots, you can actually view METAR data for any station across the country. It might seem difficult to decipher these weather reports at first, but I’ll dive into reading the basics of METAR to help readers learn something new! On Saturday, November 4th, I submitted an hourly observation to the National Weather

Interning in the Clouds: My Mount Washington Odyssey By Jordan Frate Now that my time as the 2023 fall intern for the Mount Washington Observatory is coming to an end, I would argue that my abilities as a forecast meteorologist and research scientist have vastly improved. Coming from Maui, Hawaii, Mount Washington has provided me with many first experiences. Mount Washington has given me my first experiences with: wind chills below 0 degrees Fahrenheit, hurricane force winds, a blizzard, or even shoveling snow. Throughout my internship I have witnessed the breaking of various records. I was on shift when

A Week In the Life of a Weather Observer Thursday, October 19 For me, Thursdays are the most difficult because this is the first full day of an 8 day shift on the summit after six days off. My day began at 5:45am to get ready for my 6:30am day shift. Upon opening the Current Summit Conditions page on the Mount Washington Website when I woke up, I noticed our new website was up and running. This website was a long time coming and took a lot of work, particularly from Keith Garrett, Director of Technology. Thank you Keith!

Me on the summit of Mount Washington with my dog, Emma, in August of 2021. Hi all! I’m Amy Cotter, one of the fall summit interns, and I am thrilled to be working at Mount Washington Observatory. I was lucky enough to grow up in the Mount Washington Valley, and I spent my childhood hiking in the White Mountains. My family loves exploring the outdoors, and I will always be grateful to my parents for raising me with an appreciation and respect for wilderness and nature. Through my teenage years, I worked at Zeb’s General Store (where

Hello! My name is Charlie Peachey, and I am a new weather observer at Mount Washington Observatory. I recently graduated with my bachelor's and master's degrees in meteorology from Plymouth State University and am wicked excited for the opportunity to work and live at the Home of the World's Worst Weather. I was born and raised just outside of Boston in Concord, MA, and spent my summers either relaxing along the seacoast of New Hampshire or exploring the White Mountains. So, I was lucky enough to experience all the incredible weather that New England has to offer while growing

Meteorological Summer 2023 By The Numbers By Ryan Knapp, Weather Observer/Staff Meteorologist Looking at our calendar, we are only days away from autumn which will land on Saturday, 23 September 2023. This date refers to the astronomical autumn season, which is based on Earth’s tilt on its axis as it is orbiting around the sun. Therefore, the seasons of autumn and spring would land on the equinoxes (when day and night are roughly of equal length) and summer and winter would land on solstices (when day/night are of their greatest lengths, longest day in summer, longest night in winter).

Views from the Top: Summer Intern Signing Off This summer, I had an incredible opportunity to intern at Mount Washington Observatory. I learned a lot in the process. Being from Prince George’s County, MD, just 20 minutes from D.C., I wasn't very familiar with New Hampshire or the mountains before coming to the summit. Through the course of my internship, I was able to view the beautiful higher summits, all while learning a ton of meteorological knowledge.During my undergraduate years at the Pennsylvania State University, I had never taken a forecasting course. However, this summer I worked alongside Jay Broccolo